Tuesday, May 20, 2014

A plausible theory is not so much debated as denounced. To Leftists, all mention of genetics is "racist" and hence not to be discussed

A BOOK claiming genetics lies behind the emergence of ­Europe and parts of Asia as economic powerhouses has been criticised by scientists.

A Troublesome Inheritance by Nicholas Wade, a New York Times science writer for 30 years, says that since the sequencing of the human genome in 2003, evidence of genetic differences has been mounting.

After our ancestors left Africa, he says, different groups of people evolved in slightly different ways to adapt to local conditions. The most successful of those people passed on their ­adaptations to their offspring.

Wade also challenges the consensus that human evolution stopped shortly after the Stone Age. “New analyses of the human genome have established that human evolution has been recent, copious, and regional,” he writes. Populations have changed, grown lactose intolerant for example, or adjusted to live at high altitudes or in severely cold climates, he writes.

This part of the book has been relatively well received. However, his subsequent argument that there are genetic group differences in behaviour and cognitive skills, and that human history can be explained by genetics has left him vulnerable to attack. In The Times of London yesterday, Matt Ridley said he couldn’t accept the idea that genes account for momentous events in history, such as the Industrial Revolution.

Wade says evidence from surnames shows that entrepreneurial Europeans out-bred their less-able citizens, creating a hotbed for creativity. “The ability of the rich to raise more surviving children slowly diffused the social behaviours required for modern prosperity into the wider society.”

These behaviours became the fertile soil for the Industrial Revolution, which vaulted Britain out of poverty and paved the way for Western domination. “The rise of the West is an event not just in history but also in human evolution,” he writes.

Ridley responded: “Yes, there would have been genetic change in European society as certain types of personality had more offspring. But surely this was not fast enough and large enough an effect to spark the ­Industrial Revolution”.

Wade’s argument has run into criticism elsewhere. The US statistician Andrew Gelman calls his book “racist”.

In the book, Wade points out that in the early 1950s Ghana and South Korea had similar economies. Thirty years later, South Korea had become the world’'s 14th-largest economy while Ghana’s had stagnated.

The author believes South Koreans valued thrift, investment, hard work, education and discipline while Ghanaians had different values, and he attributes these attitudes towards East Asian genes.

The author believes South Koreans valued thrift, investment, hard work, education and discipline while Ghanaians had different values, and he attributes these attitudes towards East Asian genes.

Wait, so he's claiming that ideas are genetic? Apparently this guy is from the shallow end of the gene pool. </sarc>

My first thought was that this guy is certainly in line with the title of Darwin's second book on evolution: "On The Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle For Life"

I don't understand how he explains the timing of these genetic traits coming to the fore...If there is an underlying genetic explanation then either Korea should have been more 'advanced' then Ghana since pre-history or a new 'success' gene developed post WWII.And why was the Muslim world so advanced in mathematics, astronomy, and medicine until the Middle Ages - then stagnated? Did their success gene disappear around then but pop up in Europe?

I hope when "Luke" quotes Darwin that he isn't one of those ignoramuses who calls Darwin a racist because of the reference to "Favoured Races", which wasn't refering to human races directly but to races of any organism (just as we now sometimes refer to breeds of dogs as races).

Genes? What could genes possibly have to do with intelligence or personality traits. Genes only control skin color - every one who is not an idiot or a racist or both knows this in the depths of their soul.

Now could someone explain to me why horses with thoroughbred genes are better at long races than those with quarterhorse genes. Oh, and explain why cows with Holstein genes give more milk than cows with angus genes. I'll bet it was their home environment when they were colts/calves, and perhaps quarterhorses and angus cows were enslaved at some point, right?

While aspects of intelligence and fortitude might be inherited, culture and traditions play a more significant role. Take a super intelligent individual and subject immerse them in a culture of shiftlessness, sloth, and you will find a great many of them will also become lazy or unproductive. However, this goes back to an old debate of nature vs nurture.

The successes or failures of whole populations/countries in competing with others has a lot to do with un/lucky breaks that can lead to other successes/failures, whether that's a "water-shed" military battle, or some skill at say boat-building that leads to naval power, or sitting on some valuable resources like coal, oil or gold, or some technological discoveries leading to important industries, etc., etc. Most in any population would be the same as regards the range of intelligence and abilities, but the evolving environments they find themselves in will awaken or suppress their potentials.

Is the American national anthem politically incorrect? From the 4th verse:Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."

Mohammad

The truth can be offensive to some but it must be said

"HATE SPEECH" is free speech: The U.S. Supreme Court stated the general rule regarding protected speech in Texas v. Johnson (109 S.Ct. at 2544), when it held: "The government may not prohibit the verbal or nonverbal expression of an idea merely because society finds the idea offensive or disagreeable." Federal courts have consistently followed this. Said Virginia federal district judge Claude Hilton: "The First Amendment does not recognize exceptions for bigotry, racism, and religious intolerance or ideas or matters some may deem trivial, vulgar or profane."

Even some advocacy of violence is protected by the 1st Amendment. In Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), the U.S. Supreme Court held unanimously that speech advocating violent illegal actions to bring about social change is protected by the First Amendment "except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action."

The double standard: Atheists can put up signs and billboards saying that Christianity is wrong and that is hunky dory. But if a Christian says that homosexuality is wrong, that is attacked as "hate speech"

One for the militant atheists to consider: "...it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg" -- Thomas Jefferson

"I think no subject should be off-limits, and I regard the laws in many Continental countries criminalizing Holocaust denial as philosophically repugnant and practically useless – in that they confirm to Jew-haters that the Jews control everything (otherwise why aren’t we allowed to talk about it?)" -- Mark Steyn

Voltaire's most famous saying was actually a summary of Voltaire's thinking by one of his biographers rather than something Voltaire said himself. Nonetheless it is a wholly admirable sentiment: "I disagree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it". I am of a similar mind.

The traditional advice about derogatory speech: "Sticks and stones will break your bones but names will never hurt you". Apparently people today are not as emotionally robust as their ancestors were.

Why conservatives should not respond to Leftist abuse: "Never wrestle with a pig, because you'll both just get dirty, and the pig likes it.”

The KKK were members of the DEMOCRATIC party. Google "Klanbake" if you doubt it

A phobia is an irrational fear, so the terms "Islamophobic" and "homophobic" embody a claim that the people so described are mentally ill. There is no evidence for either claim. Both terms are simply abuse masquerading as diagnoses and suggest that the person using them is engaged in propaganda rather than in any form of rational or objective discourse.

Leftists often pretend that any mention of race is "racist" -- unless they mention it, of course. But leaving such irrational propaganda aside, which statements really are racist? Can statements of fact about race be "racist"? Such statements are simply either true or false. The most sweeping possible definition of racism is that a racist statement is a statement that includes a negative value judgment of some race. Absent that, a statement is not racist, for all that Leftists might howl that it is. Facts cannot be racist so nor is the simple statement of them racist. Here is a statement that cannot therefore be racist by itself, though it could be false: "Blacks are on average much less intelligent than whites". If it is false and someone utters it, he could simply be mistaken or misinformed.

Categorization is a basic human survival skill so racism as the Left define it (i.e. any awareness of race) is in fact neither right nor wrong. It is simply human

Whatever your definition of racism, however, a statement that simply mentions race is not thereby racist -- though one would think otherwise from American Presidential election campaigns. Is a statement that mentions dogs, "doggist" or a statement that mentions cats, "cattist"?

If any mention of racial differences is racist then all Leftists are racist too -- as "affirmative action" is an explicit reference to racial differences

Was Abraham Lincoln a racist? "You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss, but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think your race suffer very greatly, many of them by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence. In a word, we suffer on each side. If this be admitted, it affords a reason at least why we should be separated. It is better for both, therefore, to be separated." -- Spoken at the White House to a group of black community leaders, August 14th, 1862

Gimlet-eyed Leftist haters sometimes pounce on the word "white" as racist. Will the time come when we have to refer to the White House as the "Full spectrum of light" House?

The spirit of liberty is "the spirit which is not too sure that it is right." and "Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it." -- Judge Learned Hand

Mostly, a gaffe is just truth slipping out

Two lines below of a famous hymn that would be incomprehensible to Leftists today ("honor"? "right"? "freedom?" Freedom to agree with them is the only freedom they believe in)

First to fight for right and freedom,
And to keep our honor clean

It is of course the hymn of the USMC -- still today the relentless warriors that they always were.

It seems a pity that the wisdom of the ancient Greek philosopher Epictetus is now little known. Remember, wrote the Stoic thinker, "that foul words or blows in themselves are no outrage, but your judgment that they are so. So when any one makes you angry, know that it is your own thought that has angered you. Wherefore make it your endeavour not to let your impressions carry you away."

"Since therefore the knowledge and survey of vice is in this world so necessary to the constituting of human virtue, and the scanning of error to the confirmation of truth, how can we more safely, and with less danger, scout into the regions of sin and falsity than by reading all manner of tractates, and hearing all manner of reason?" -- English poet John Milton (1608-1674) in Areopagitica

Leftists can try to get you fired from your job over something that you said and that's not an attack on free speech. But if you just criticize something that they say, then that IS an attack on free speech

The intellectual Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) could have been speaking of much that goes on today when he said: "The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."

I despair of the ADL. Jews have enough problems already and yet in the ADL one has a prominent Jewish organization that does its best to make itself offensive to Christians. Their Leftism is more important to them than the welfare of Jewry -- which is the exact opposite of what they ostensibly stand for! Jewish cleverness seems to vanish when politics are involved. Fortunately, Christians are true to their saviour and have loving hearts. Jewish dissatisfaction with the myopia of the ADL is outlined here. Note that Foxy was too grand to reply to it.

There are also two blogspot blogs which record what I think are my main recent articles here and here. Similar content can be more conveniently accessed via my subject-indexed list of short articles here or here (I rarely write long articles these days)

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